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9/29/2012

Recent news stories
about wedding witnesses disqualified for their smartphones and a rabbi-led
iPhone smashing ceremony need not generate feelings of alienation among
moderates. We all need to remember a simple message: Even a united global Torah
community has sub-communities with different customs and standards. What works
for some people may be totally inappropriate for us. However, responsible
Internet usage is a universally obligation, even if it takes different forms in
different communities.

Over the past few
months, Torah leaders have reminded us that filters are not enough for a kosher
online experience. While someone with enough time and skill can always bypass a
filter, even those with no such desire or ability need more. Filters, at their
best, keep out the shmutz and other inappropriate websites. Frum Jews have a
higher standard than that. As we rapidly transition to a digital age, we have
to remember that people are still people and the Torah is still our guide.

R. Mordechai
Kamenetsky tells the story of people paying a shivah call to his grandfather,
Reb Yaakov. The large crowd required additional chairs. As individuals went to
the basement to bring chairs, Reb Yaakov encouraged them to take a chair for
someone else. In that way, he explained, you can turn a simple necessary act
into an act of chesed. We, too, can raise our time online from a necessary
chore into a mitzvah, an opportunity to help others spiritually.

Internet Is
Necessary

Calls for
restricting Internet usage to business needs will fail. We increasingly
accomplish our household needs online. We not only shop, pay our bills, file
our insurance claims and the like on the Internet but we also learn online
about medical symptoms, home maintenance, travel destinations and much more.
Information has been overwhelmingly transferred to the Internet, which has in
turn become the primary information resource for our everyday lives. If you want
to know a museum’s hours for a summer Sunday family trip, you check its
website. If you need directions to a wedding hall, you use Google Maps. And if
you want to know whether New York State vehicular law allows a u-turn from the
right lane, you search for it online.

More than that,
Torah sails through the cyberwaves in previously unimaginable ways. Some
yeshivas place recordings of every single shiur online so alumni and others can
learn from their rabbeim. I can access literally hundreds of thousands of hours,
perhaps millions, of high-level shiurim on my smartphone. One website provides
the entire text of Tanach, Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmud Bavli, Yerushalmi and
Mishneh Torah. Another contains tens of thousands of sefarim for free download.
Ten years ago, I was a frequent visitor of the New York Public Library’s
collection of obscure sefarim in Midtown Manhattan. Now I just download them
onto my iPad. The process of learning has not changed but the method of
accessing texts and classes has, particularly for those who have left yeshiva.

Time Is Precious

We cannot avoid the
Internet so we must embrace it with basic guidelines. In addition to the
filters and image blockers we install, three Torah principles must stand at the
forefront of our minds. The first is bitul zman, wasting time. Everyone needs
down time to relax, shmooze, recharge your batteries and allow for random
thought association. We are more creative when our minds have some time to
expand beyond our normal corridors of thought.

But beware of the Internet
time hole. Websites make money by keeping you online for long stretches of
time. The easiest way to counter that effort is keeping a log of how much time
you spend online each day, outside of work-related activity. Hashem gave you
enough common sense to know that spending hours on end each night engaged in
leisure activity is simply wrong. It is a waste of your short time in this
world. When you keep a log, you gain the power to make informed decisions about
how best to spend your time.

Behave Yourself

Second is tznius.
While we often speak of tznius in terms of how we dress, we know that it also
applies to how we act. Filters and image blockers can remove pictures that fail
our standards of modesty but our conscience must guide our interactions with
others. Your online interpersonal conduct must follow the same high standards
as your offline public interactions. The language you use, the aggressiveness
you exhibit and the intimacy of your interactions with others on the Internet
must demonstrate your best behavior. Oversharing, flirting or developing close
relationships with members of the opposite gender are just as inappropriate
online as off.

Kiddush Hashem

Every interaction we
have with others, particularly in public, is an opportunity to make a Kiddush
Hashem. With nearly the entire civilized world active on the Internet, your
time online is just such an opportunity. Whenever you are online, regardless of
which website you are visiting, try to make a Kiddush Hashem. Act with sterling
midos, show respect to others, let the whole world know that you and your
community–Hashem’s chosen people–serve as positive role models.

You are smart enough
to know that even when you are correct, insulting others will offend. You know
that honey attracts more than a sting. When you are online, you are in public
and need to be the honey that attracts people to the Torah. You must
demonstrate that the Torah refines people into exemplary individuals worthy of
emulation.

The three Torah
concepts we discussed are only some of the many that should guide your Internet
use. Most importantly, you have to realize your obligation to rise above the
chaos of the Internet, just like your offline behavior rises above levels
exhibited on the city street. We must not only avoid improper online behavior
but actively show the beauty of a Torah lifestyle. In doing so, we raise our
Internet activities into mitzvah acts, spreading Hashem’s glory across the
world.

The MegaPig Baruch Lebovits, was today in court with
three lawyers. Two Dershowitz brothers and his original lawyer Aidela. His wife
(whom he called an old k . . . ., was also present, together
with two of their sons. They tought the he will be let off, ‑ wishful thinking,
he will go thru the system again. The Dershowitzes argued that they are conducting
an intense investigation, about the web that was spread around their poor
client, and they know things that the DA doesn’t know, and what with the
extortion case, and that when the judge reviews the case, “she should please
let them know if she finds anything that can help them”. The next hearing will
be on November 30.

Alan Dershowitz wisited yesterday the Munkatcher
Rebbe. As you can see from their faces, they couldn’t figure out how to make a mofes,
not for the motzes B.M.L., and not for MbP. The only one that is going
to make metzitza is Dershowitz – he will suck out their last dollar.

The NYPD is investigating a report of a Queens toddler being
sexually assaulted in her home.

Investigators are looking into whether surveillance cameras
captured any suspicious activity in the area overnight. They say nearly every
home on the block where the reported assault happened has a security camera.

According to police, a man reported that a stranger sneaked into an
apartment on 88th Avenue and climbed into a bed where his toddler daughter was
sleeping.

The man told authorities he heard a tapping noise coming from the
girl’s room, then discovered a man, asleep, smelling of alcohol in bed next to
her.

After walking the intruder out of the home, the father heard his
wife screaming that the girl’s pajamas and underwear had been removed.

But when he raced back out to find the man again, he was gone,
police said.

Investigators are telling residents in the area to lock their doors
and windows. They were seen carting away bags of evidence, including a teddy
bear, pajamas and bedding to check for DNA.

“It’s so stressful because we have kids, too,” said neighbor Radha
Persa. “Something like that happens, it’s very bad.”